


all this love

by pinksunlight



Series: we were raised under grey (pink, black, peach, brown) skies [3]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coming Out, Confrontations, Getting Back Together, LGBTQ Themes, Light Angst, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Break Up, donghyuck's an author btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:40:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29001609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinksunlight/pseuds/pinksunlight
Summary: escape・v/əˈskāp/There’s nothing to fuel a writer like love. Except, maybe, the loss of it.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Series: we were raised under grey (pink, black, peach, brown) skies [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2121540
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58





	all this love

**Author's Note:**

> sort of kind of formatted like the lover's dictionary by david levithan! 
> 
> _[water's](https://open.spotify.com/album/3cS0qzNDjE5SjdAL1W98fo?highlight=spotify:track:10unIjOu5Jurco3SDbV4HZ) getting rough, swimming in your stuff, i just wanna get to the shore  
> i'm drowning in memories of you that i try to ignore  
> still, i'm playing host, hanging with the ghosts, telling them the story of you  
> they always laugh at my jokes as we dance through the room_
> 
> _i got all this love, nothing to do with it now  
>  when you gonna come and get it? i can't throw it out  
> i got all this love gathering dust in my house  
> i got all this love, all this love_

**reasonable・ _adj_**

**/ˈrēz(ə)nəb(ə)l/**

A tale in two parts.

One, Mark pleads Donghyuck to open the door.

 _Donghyuck,_ he says, voice cracking in desperation, _don’t do this. I’m sorry, I know you are, too._ Donghyuck collapses in on himself on the closed lid of the toilet, trying to block out all the light, all the noise. Mark doesn’t relent. _We’ll be okay, Hyuck. Just open the door, please._

It takes two hours of begging and coaxing until Donghyuck opens the door on shaky legs, nearly falling over when Mark barrels into him, wrapping him up in his arms as he whispers apologies over and over again into his hair.

Donghyuck only has to say one thing to bring him to a stop.

Two, Donghyuck spends the next couple of evenings not trying hard enough.

Picture frames get turned face-down. On top of the piano, next to the TV, sitting atop the dresser. The polaroids on the fridge get flipped over, magnets coming to rest on pure white instead of the previous colours. Not once does Donghyuck consider ridding himself of the pictures entirely.

(It would make everything so much easier, but Donghyuck decides he doesn’t exactly deserve easy, anyway.)

**downfall・ _n_**

**/ˈdounˌfôl/**

“You know,” Mark ventures cautiously, hooking his chin over Donghyuck’s shoulder, “I still haven’t met your parents.”

Donghyuck relaxes back into Mark’s chest, making a noncommittal sound as he goes over what he’s written so far in his word document. Doyoung was going to absolutely tear this apart to shreds, but he supposes that’s what editors are for.

Mark places a kiss onto his shoulder, and then tugs his shirt off to the side a bit to reveal skin, dropping another kiss there. His fingers tighten around Donghyuck’s waist when he doesn’t getting a reaction, sounding borderline petulant when he asks, “Hyuck, are you listening?”

Donghyuck nods absentmindedly. Why did he think a poetry book would be a good idea, again? He backspaces for the nth time, wondering why he couldn’t have just stuck to fantasy novels.

“Mark!” Donghyuck’s jerked out of his thoughts when cold fingers sneak under his shirt. “A warning would be nice, please.”

“I’m _talking_ to you, that’s warning enough,” Mark replies, reaching for Donghyuck’s laptop and hitting save before he shuts it and moves it off his thighs. “Pay attention to your boyfriend or he might leave you.”

It’s as empty of a threat as they come, especially from Mark, but Donghyuck needed a break anyway, so he plays his part dutifully and lets out a long relenting sigh. “Fine, what were you saying?”

He finds Mark’s hand under his shirt and peels it away, entwining their fingers with practiced ease. Mark’s thumb rubs circles on his skin as he begins, sounding a little strange, “Just… we’ve nearly been together for a year, you know? And I… well—”

Donghyuck tenses, knowing what’s coming. He hears Mark swallow nervously.

“—I was wondering if we were ever going to meet your parents. We’ve already met mine,” he finishes, quiet but clearly attempting to be firm.

Mark wordlessly kisses his cheek, seemingly testing the waters. When he doesn’t get a response, he turns Donghyuck’s face towards him, hand cradling his jaw. Mark’s eyes are full of concern and Donghyuck hates that he’s responsible, hates that such a normal conversation always has Mark walking on eggshells because of Donghyuck’s aversion to talking about his family.

He doesn’t know all of it, but he knows enough to tread carefully.

Terrible as it makes Donghyuck feel, he knows he’s going to have to say no again. He twists in Mark’s hold, straddling him as Mark’s hands come up to wind around his waist. A question still sits in his eyes, and Donghyuck leans forward to kiss the worried crease between his eyebrows.

“Do you trust me?” He asks, pushing Mark’s hair out of his eyes gently.

Mark softens, nodding.

Donghyuck inhales deeply, “Then trust me when I say meeting my parents isn’t a good idea. I love you, and I’m sorry. Really.”

Some of the anger, hurt, resentment must leak into his voice, because all the possible fight leaves Mark as he brushes a thumb over Donghyuck’s cheekbone. He purses his lips, letting out a small sigh, and Donghyuck can’t even meet his gaze.

“They’re gonna have to know eventually, baby, but I’ll leave it for now.”

And for a while, he does.

**conditional・ _adj_**

**/kənˈdiSH(ə)n(ə)l/**

Donghyuck is 12 years old waiting to cross the road at an intersection. On his left, his parents. On his right, two strangers. Two men. He sneaks glances at them, not yet old enough to have no interest in random people on the street but no longer young enough to stare openly and unabashedly.

The men hold hands, eyes sparkling as they lean into each other every time they speak. If Donghyuck hadn’t been able to hear them, he would’ve thought they existed in their own private bubble.

The answer to a question he didn’t even know he had only just starts to build somewhere in his gut, warm and foreign, when he’s roughly pulled to stand between his parents.

“Don’t look,” his mother hisses while his father clenches his jaw, fingers digging into Donghyuck’s shoulder. “Those are not the kind of people we should be near.”

(It starts at 12 years old, and it solidifies at 17. But Donghyuck doesn’t want to talk about that.)

**truth・ _n_**

**/tro͞oTH/**

“Mark isn’t going to move out. He’s—it wasn’t a joke. When he said all those things… yeah, just—we’re together. Dating. Mark and I. And I know what you’re going to say, but if you would just listen to me when I say that I _love_ him, and that should really be the only thing that—”

The line goes dead.

**mistake・ _n_**

**/məˈstāk/**

“People like this, they’ll always get the wrong idea. They’ll always use you. Just like that filthy boy when you were in high school—”

_Donghyuck, 17, studying in his room with a boy who keeps looking at him. Their hands inch closer and closer together._

“—and I know you want to be nice, Donghyuck, but you _can’t_ be, because this is what happens. This boy thinks you’re his—you’re his _boyfriend_. Absolutely delusional—”

_Proving identities is much harder to do when you’re holding hands with a pretty boy and everything is hot and stuffy, embarrassing in a good way, an innocent way._

“—and to think, you’ve been so kind to keep him as a roommate despite his… lifestyle choices. This is why I always say, you have to be careful, you never know—”

_A broken plate, fruit on the floor, his mother yelling at the boy to get his hands off Donghyuck. Donghyuck says nothing, does nothing, until his mother starts talking to him, asking him what’s going on with rage on every inch of her skin, and Donghyuck says—_

“You’re right, mom. I’m sorry. I didn’t know he—we’re not like that, you know that. I would never, ever be like that. It’s… wrong. I know it is. I swear, Mark was just joking around. He was pulling a prank.”

Mark stands behind his parents, arms limp at his sides. He doesn’t look disappointed, or angry, or sad, but there’s a noticeable fatigue to the air around him, and when he meets Donghyuck’s eyes, he only looks apologetic.

Guilt rushes through Donghyuck fast and hard as he thinks, not for the first time, that he doesn’t deserve someone like Mark. Except this time, it’s a more insistent thought, waiting to be put into action.

His father steps up, putting on his coat and leading his mother to the door. “I want him out by the end of the week. Prank or not, I’m not having my son live with someone like this. I’ll help with finances, but no more roommate. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, dad,” Donghyuck says robotically, takeout bags still in his hands, digging into his fingers. He hadn’t even gotten to take his shoes off. His parents push past him, his dad grabbing the keys off the hook wordlessly.

The door slams shut behind them when they leave, filling the room with a heavy silence. Mark takes a step forward tentatively, looking utterly lost. “Baby, I swear, I didn’t—I thought maybe we could—fuck, I don’t even know, but Hyuck—”

“It’s not your fault,” Donghyuck cuts in, and he means it. It’s not Mark’s fault for inviting his parents out of the blue, not when it was Donghyuck’s responsibility to prepare them. Not when it has been Donghyuck’s responsibility to prepare them for so long. He’s just been so terrified, and now history has repeated itself, and he’s hurt someone he loves.

Something churns in his stomach and everything he’s said in the last few minutes plays through his mind at warp-speed. _Fuck_ , he’s going to throw up.

He drops the bags of takeout and runs to the bathroom. 

**sake・ _n_**

**/sāk/**

All he’ll do is keep hurting Mark, and that’s not fair to him. Mark deserves so, _so_ much better.

“I think we should break up,” Donghyuck chokes out into the crook of Mark’s neck. “I’m sorry.”

**escape・ _v_**

**/əˈskāp/**

There’s nothing to fuel a writer like love. Except, maybe, the loss of it.

This is what Donghyuck comes to learn as his first draft is followed by rough drafts followed by a final draft followed by the first physical test copy showing up at his doorstep in a small, carboard box.

This all happens in three months, and Doyoung sings his praises for days after the publishing schedule is finalized. Of course, he doesn’t know that Donghyuck’s been able to work so fast because he’s been wringing his heart dry.

(Ignoring Mark’s phone calls—sleeping in his shirt. Not reading Mark’s texts—scrolling through his endless gallery of pictures of the two of them. Refusing to even talk about it with any of his friends—crying over Mark’s bottle of shampoo still sitting in the shower.)

Honestly—honestly, he’s just scared, now. Scared of asking, because he doesn’t know if he’ll get the answer he wants. So he sits on the balcony and watches the sunset the way he always does when the sky is particularly alluring, and he thinks, and he feels (a lot of things, but mostly, alone, he feels alone).

His books sits on the table, and he grabs it to scrawl something on the inside of the cover, messy and compulsive and honest, and he thinks it’s some of his best work. It’s a shame no one will see it but him.

Donghyuck’s phone vibrates. Something inside of him lights up, and he picks it up all while knowing who it’s going to be.

A message from Mark.

A picture of the sky.

It only takes a few seconds until Mark’s calling, and by some willpower born out of exhaustion or love or both, he picks up.

Mark inhales sharply on the other end like he hadn’t been expecting someone to pick up, and then he wastes absolutely no time on voicing that or asking how Donghyuck is.

“I miss you.” Plain and simple.

Donghyuck closes his eyes to stop the tears but they spill out anyway, and he sniffs before responding, wet and wanting, “I miss you, too. So much. Can we talk?”

“We’re talking right now,” Mark jokes, but he sounds likes he’s crying too, voice thick with relief. Donghyuck laughs quietly, so does Mark.

And then, they talk.

**Author's Note:**

> okay most of the angst is out of the way now TT
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/punksunlight)


End file.
